1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to theme or amusement park rides with rotating platforms or turntables and passenger vehicles that can be manually rotated or rotated in a controlled manner, and, more particularly, to an amusement park ride providing multiple vertical rotation axes to provide desired movement of passenger vehicles and further providing independent vertical translational movement to each of the passenger vehicles.
2. Relevant Background
Amusement and theme parks are popular worldwide with hundreds of millions of people visiting the parks each year. Park operators continuously seek new designs for rides that attract and entertain guests in new ways. Many parks include a teacups ride that is an amusement ride characterized by cup-style spinning vehicles atop a turntable-like floor or platform.
A spinning tea-cup ride may be a ride system that includes a number of small turntables (such as three smaller turntables), which rotate clockwise/counterclockwise about a vertical rotation axis. Each of the turntables holds a number of teacups (such as six teacups or passenger vehicles), and these turntable are mounted onto a large turntable that also rotates, e.g., in the same or differing rotation direction. Further, movement is achieved by allowing the passengers to manually and independently rotate their individual teacups about a vertical rotation axis while their vehicle moves with the large turntable and also with one of the smaller turntables.
In some teacups rides, the ride system simply includes one rotatable platform or turntable with a set of six or another number of teacups or passenger vehicles. Typically, each set of six teacups has a center bearing mounted underneath, similar to a car wheel bearing mounted on a circular floor capable of turning 360 degrees about a vertical axis extending through the teacup/passenger vehicle. The floor or base of the cup sits on a larger turntable-like platform. This turntable or platform is driven by one or more motors through one or more starting devices, and the ride begins to spin slowly and builds up speed as the operator applies more power. When in operation, the ride operator or the passengers then spin each cup while the turntable spins the ride platform/turntable about a center vertical axis. The platform may be driven by a motor fixed or coupled with the platform to rotate the platform or turntable.
While tea cup and similar spinning rides remain popular, amusement park operators continue to search for ways to improve upon and modify the conventional design. Preferably, such a new ride design would build upon the large turntable concept to control the footprint of the new ride as real estate or space within most amusement parks is limited and also make use of well-known and tested propulsion or drive devices for rotating platforms/turntables. Further, existing turntable rides have been limited to a small work space or volume as the rotation platform or rotation platforms/turntables in the “party” ride design have been limited to a single horizontal plane or rotational level (e.g., the tea cups or vehicles rotate on a rotating serving tray or plate). Hence, there remains a need for improved amusement or theme park rides that provide new and unique movements of passenger vehicles (e.g., teacups or other body designs) to entertain park visitors in new and exciting ways.